home for an island

It's been a while since I updated this thing. Between Christmas, New Years, vacation, and general craziness I wasn't able to find much time to keep this thing up to date over the past few weeks.

Christmas was a very good time for me. I was pretty unhappy with my job and the time in New Jersey was good for me. I enjoy my family more and more every time I see them and this was no exception. Laura came up for a night and despite her not feeling well I think everyone had a good time. My parents were also up in Boston this past weekend to drop Britta off at the airport (she's spending three weeks in Spain) so we got to hang out some more which I really enjoyed.

My father gave me his old turntable. I don't have any stereo equipment to power it so I bought this gorgeous, retro receiver and speakers from ebay:

The whole thing cost me under 40 bucks (13 for the system, 25 to ship, 38 total) and I should have it by the end of next week. Once I have everything working I am going to start collecting vinyl.

After Christmas I came back up to Boston to see my many friends who were visiting from across the country. Jen Han and her fiance Grant were in town for a few nights for wedding planning and we got dinner at the Alchemist and then drinks at the Behan. I haven't seen Jen since right when Laura and I started dating and I was really excited to catch up with her after so long. Mike D'Emic was at Harvard doing some research for his thesis and a bunch of us got to go to Our House for some Brubakers and good times that hearkened back to when we were all in college. He's doing well and will probably be around again for reserach. Spoony was also in town for the whole week and we had several chances to play little men, grab dinner, and hang out on New Year's.

My New Year's resolution for this year was to try to be more invested in my job. Recently I've been pretty unhappy with my work situation and that negative attitude made it hard for me to be there. I'd like to try to be more positive at work and really try to find ways to occupy myself with job related tasks instead of moping around the internet all day. Two days in and thus far I've been pretty successful. I'm not 100% about any of this but I've managed to keep myself happily busy and productive since returning to the office and I will say that I've been happier here as a result.

Speaking of jobs, Laura has had two interviews this far (one at Tufts and one at Suffolk) that have gone well. She hasn't heard from either one yet but I know she's expecting to get word from Suffolk in the next several days. I e-mailed a woman from MassBay Community College this afternoon about sitting down and talking about teaching math at the community college level. I still do want to teach and I think this might be a better alternative than high school.

Today marks the first run of my 4th week training for Boston. The first three weeks were a rollercoaster of snow storms, missed runs, and reshuffling. Despite all that I managed to get in every run except one 4 miler which I think I will just let slide. I'm glad to be back on schedule though and hope to be able to keep a more even keel for the rest of training. I am still working on nailing down how 8:30 pace feels but I've been doing a lot better than when I started.